The Washington Demons will get a new season of Southeast Conference action underway on the baseball field tonight, and they’ll start it with the classic rivalry battle with Mount Pleasant in a doubleheader you can hear on KCII.

After defeating Highland 8-3 in their season opener last week, Washington fell 11-2 at Muscatine. The Demons pushed the 10th-ranked team in Class 3A to extra innings Friday but lost a 5-4 walk-off at Solon, already showing significant improvement from a four-win campaign in 2023.

A solid start to the season by Washington has been driven at the plate by players like juniors Aaron Boone, Luke Schiebel and Mason Morgan, all of which have at least two hits and two runs scored each.

Sophomore Kael Williams joins Boone with multiple runs scored and at least four stolen bases, while senior Caleb Zieglowsky, last year’s team leader in runs batted in, has a pair of RBI to pace the team so far this season.

Junior pitcher Conner Leyden has been solid in two starts, allowing only three earned runs on six hits and four walks in seven innings of work while also racking up eight strikeouts.

Freshman Brady Krantz has also been a welcome addition to the Demon staff, yielding three runs on eight hits and three walks in six innings pitched and striking out nine.

Washington will be facing a Mount Pleasant team that has started this season 3-2 but is coming off back-to-back losses. The Panthers went 13-12 last year but lost the season series to the Demons, including dropping both games of the conference doubleheader before winning Game Three later in the week.

Washington softball also starts conference play with a doubleheader at Mount Pleasant, looking for a sweep of the series as they did last summer. The Demons, ranked seventh in the state in Class 3A, have won two of their first three in 2024.

You can catch the always-exciting action as Washington and Mount Pleasant meet on the baseball diamond for a pair this evening on 106.1 FM KCII and streaming on KCIIradio.com and th KCII app, starting with the Roder Epoxy Pregame Show at 5 and first pitch of Game One at 5:30.